


louder than words

by SnorkleShit



Category: Fablehaven Series - Brandon Mull
Genre: Canon Divergent, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Muteness, Oneshot, Set in Secrets Of The Dragon Sanctuary, fake!death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5711425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnorkleShit/pseuds/SnorkleShit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon Divergent little thing wherein Seth stops talking after Kendra "dies".</p>
            </blockquote>





	louder than words

_"I know you think everything is a joke, that rules don't apply to you!"_ Kendra's voice rang through his mind.

Staring down at the dew covered grass between his black loafers, he wondered if anything would ever be funny enough to make him laugh now. 

Why hadn't he seen it? How could he not have known his sister had been somehow corrupted? She had to have been being controlled, she wouldn't...she wouldn't have betrayed them. 

He should have noticed. He should have known. He should have done something, been observant and responsible for _once._

But now she was gone, and everything was in shades of gray. And all that mattered was finding who was responsible for it, and making them pay. His fingers clenched in the fabric of the nice suite his mother had bought him for the funeral. He concentrated on the feeling of the cold stone of the obelisk he was leaning against on his back. 

The sound of feet crunching behind him pulled his thoughts in that direction. Soon, Grandpa Sorenson was standing over him. He had wandered away from the proceedings, not caring for the ceremony. He needed time to himself. He thought about telling someone he was going to sit out, but he hadn’t seemed to be able to find the motivation to care if they knew where he was or not. 

"How are you holding up, Seth?" Stan asked. Seth kept his eyes on Grandpa's shoes. He shrugged, thinking of no words to respond to that.

Grandpa nodded, and Seth had a feeling his parents had told him and the others about his recent lack of talkativity. 

"As you can imagine, this entire situation is a nightmare." Grandpa started.

 _One I can’t wake up from._ Seth thought in response, but nothing passed his lips on the matter.

“We’ve been scrambling to piece together what happened.” Grandpa continued. This got Seth’s attention- this was what he needed. Answers. His head wiped up and her stared up at them intently, tilting his head. But he didn’t open his mouth to ask what they’d found yet. The situation would pull it from them, it was fairly obvious what he was wondering. There wasn’t any need to ask anything yet, verbally.

Grandpa shoved his hands in his pockets, looking uncomfortable. “It’s been a hard time for all of us, maybe when you’re ready, we can talk about it.” He said slowly. Seth swallowed past a strange lump in his throat, and pushed himself to his feet to look his grandfather in the eyes as he crossed his arms. Stan nodded, lips trembling a little. He was looking at Seth with a mixture of emotions that Seth didn’t feel like deciphering, at the moment. 

“Some of our friends broke into the morgue and conducted an informal autopsy on Kendra. It was really her. Not a changeling, at least.” Stan said. Seth shook his head and made a noise of disagreement, coming roughly from his throat. Grandpa Sorenson pursed his lips and nodded, looking back towards the funeral in the distance.

“Warren shares the sentiment, he assures me that it wasn’t Kendra in control. I’m sure of it as well, and I wasn’t there. The man who ran the daycare she worked at turned up dead in his condo over the weekend. Rex Tanner, do you know anything about him?” Grandpa asked, turning to look back at him. Seth shook his head.

“It’s clear whatever happened started at the daycare, but from there the trail is cold…” Grandpa cleared his throat, and looked at something over Seth’s shoulder. Seth didn’t bother to turn around.

“Your parents are gone, I told them I would bring you home. There’s someone i’d like you to meet.” Grandpa introduced. Seth listened to footsteps crunch on the frozen winter grass as a bald black man in a long trench coat came around the obelisk, coming to stand before him. 

“Seth, this is Trask. He’s a detective and a Knight of Dawn, he’s going to help us get to the bottom of this.” Grandpa introduced. Seth turned to look the man up and down.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Trask told him, very seriously. Seth fixed him with a hard look for a moment, before looking at Grandpa and jerking his towards the newcomer, raising his eyebrows expectantly. There was a moment of awkward silence and the two men exchanged a look, but Seth didn’t care.

“I spent a few days in Monmouth, Illinois, where the letter was addressed. So far we have nothing, but I left a man watching the post office. But i’m not done yet. I’ve already got Warren’s recounting of the events, but i’d be particularly interested in a statement from you explaining the details of your sister’s strange behavior.” Trask asked solemnly. Seth nodded, and opened his mouth. But something stopped him, and he suddenly felt very small. This was his chance to help with the investigation, this was what he cared about, this was what he wanted.

Grandpa cleared his throat. “It would, uh, probably serve as a better record if Seth wrote it down, so you could reference it directly.” 

Trask nodded, picking up what Stan was putting down. “You’re right. I’ll expect that as soon as possible. So far, everything points to the day care. We’ve got our best people working on this. As for you, Seth, you can best serve this cause by returning to Fablehaven with your grandfather.” Trask told him firmly. Seth blinked in surprise, and shook his head, looking at his Grandfather desperately. Stan reached out and squeezed him on the shoulder. 

“We have no idea what they know, what they’re planning or how much access they have to us. We’re in full battle stations, we need to keep you safe, and you can help from there, I promise.” Grandpa told him. They all started to walk back through the grass, and Seth felt like everything around him had lost all it’s color. And not just because it was winter.

\---------------

It had been a long, eventful day, even before they got all the way to Fablehaven, they’d gotten the call about Maddox and the bathtub. Seth was somewhat happy to see Maddox, but when Maddox had greeted him, all Seth could respond with was a silent, very fake smile. The others had been quick to lean down and whisper in Maddox’s ear about Kendra, and about how he _shouldn’t expect a any wordy responses_. 

Later, Grandma had come to him and talked to him gently about how _everybody grieves differently_. And then a lot of stuff about how it was alright to be sad, and how everyone was here for him.

He knew that. He knew he wasn’t alone.

Even so, he still couldn’t help but feel...isolated. Out of sync. He felt like he was numb, like the world was slowly just fading into static. The satyrs had tried to greet him, tried to entice him with new treasure they’d found, and a hammock they had made. He wanted to join them, wanted their banter and trinkets to take away some of the dull, all consuming pain. But all he’d been able to do was stand at the edge of the porch and shake his head.

Newel and Doren, unlike his family, didn’t pick up the social cue, and continued to call out to him from the edge of the yard. Dale had quickly come to his aid, hurrying over to them and waving his hands as he said something Seth couldn’t hear, but was sure he could imagine. The satyrs had been frozen for a moment, before awkwardly calling out their condolences about Kendra and backing into the woods again. Seth felt sad to see them go, but his mouth wouldn’t open and his feet wouldn’t move to follow them. He wondered if it really mattered either way.

\-------------

After the momentary alarm and confusion of the situation with Vanessa at the dungeon door and Maddox in the box, Seth found himself following the adults down the stairs, who were following Vanessa. He was relieved they hadn’t told him not to come with.

“He’s not really Maddox, Stan.” Vanessa said. “I put him to sleep with a bite, follow me.”

“What do you mean it isn’t Maddox?” Grandma asked. “Who was it?”

“A stingbulb.” Vanessa said.

“There are no more stingbulbs.” Tanu protested. “They’ve been extinct for centuries.”

Vanessa cast a look back at him. “The Sphinx has access to stingbulbs. I knew that long before this pseudo Maddox confirmed it.” 

“He confessed it?” Ruth asked.

“He assumed I was on his side. That’s why he let me out, he was trying to enlist my help.” Vanessa said as she turned down another hallway.

“The Quiet Box is the other way!” Grandpa protested.

“Maddox is this way, I incapacitated him outside the Hall Of Dread.” Vanessa explained.

“Does this mean the real Maddox is dead?” Tanu asked.

“He was alive when they made the copy. Stingbulbs can only replicate the living. But he must have been in bad shape, because the stingbulb copied him exactly”

“So what exactly is a stingbulb? I’ve heard of them, but I assumed they where like other changelings.” Ruth inquired. Seth also wanted to know, he had never heard of these things. Maddox had seemed so...real. How could he have been such a perfect copy?

 

“A stingbulb is a species of magical fruit that extracts a sample of living tissue and can make itself into an imitation of the organism,” Vanessa explained. “The copy is almost exact, even duplicating most of the memories.” She explained. “Which is why you shouldn’t feel bad by being duped by the fake Maddox.” 

Seth stopped walking. The other didn’t notice, why would they, he’d been quiet this whole time anyways. He felt like his brain was buzzing. He furrowed his brows, staring down at the stone floor.

“So they...could impersonate someone really well. But they’d be just a little off?” He finally heard himself speaking up, his voice surprisingly rough. The others froze at the sound of his voice, and all whirled around. He forced himself to look up at them.

“What if that explains what happened to Kendra? What if she was replaced by a stingbulb?” He said, barely daring himself to hope. Grandpa’s eyes narrowed.

“That would fit...very very well.”

“She could still be alive!” Grandma gasped. Seth felt like all the emotions that had been dull and aching inside him had suddenly grown sharp, and he put his hand over his mouth to hold back a sob. He tried to fight back the tears of relief and hope that sprang into his eyes. 

\----------------------

Kendra woke up from her nap in the car, and wa told they had about an hour left before reaching Fablehaven. Warren was driving, and she was in the passenger seat. The trees outside her window were familiar, even bare and stripped of leaves.

“I wasn’t gone that long, but i’ve never felt this homesick.” Kendra confessed.

“I don’t doubt it. Personally, I see people as what you miss more than places. And everyone missed you just as much, if not more. I mean, not to belittle your traumatic imprisonment, but we thought you where _dead_.” Warren said emphatically. “So don’t be surprised if we don’t let you out of our sight for a while.”

Kendra looked over at him, lost in thought. “It must have been hard, watching- watching what you thought was me die. I’m sorry you had to go through that.” She said gently. Warren had a dark look in his eyes as he stared ahead at the road. She didn’t like it, his eyes were usually bright and gleaming.

“It was. But it was harder on Seth than it was on me. He...didn’t take your faux passing well. But I hear he’s doing better knowing you’re alive.” Warren told her, voice laced with the weight of emotions. 

“What do you mean?” Kendra had a hard time thinking about anyone grieving person having a worse time than another. Pain was all relative, in her opinion.

“He was a mess, like everyone else for a few days, crying their eyes out. But then he just…” Warren shrugged. “He shut down. He stopped talking, wouldn’t eat, barely responded to much. Dale says he looked paler than I did, during my five year long albino nap. But apparently he’s talking again, so that’s good. I’m kinda glad I was busy working with Trask, and i’m kinda glad I didn’t have to see him like that. Dale says everyone was worried they were gonna lose the other Sorenson sibling too, but I know that neither of you are ever gonna really go down that easy.” Warren said, smiling at her and flashing her a wink. She smiled back, then looked back out the window, lost in thought over the events of the past few days and her family. Seth, mute? It was something she couldn't even find herself able to imagine. 

It was sad, that there last talk had been an argument. Well, from her perspective. Maybe not from his. Although, he would probably prefer an open ended argument than watching his own sister commit suicide.

God, the thought of her copy lying dead under her gravestone made her shiver. But they had bigger things to worry about.

\------------

Kendra and Warren were coming through the door. Kendra had a red imprint on her face, as if she’d fallen asleep in the car and slept too long against the seat belt. She was real, she was here, she was in full color and he felt like he was going to burst with joy and fall apart all at once. He rushed forward with eyes full of tears, and flung his arms around her.

“Whoa,” Kendra grunted, surprised at the unbridled affection as she squeezed him back.

“I’m so glad you’re alright.” Seth said, trying to blink away his tears. “We buried you.”

“I heard. I’m glad too.”


End file.
